\
\
The news in this publi
cation is released for the
press on receipt.
THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA
NEWS LETTER
Published Weekly by the
University of North Caro
lina for the University Ex
tension Division.
JUNE 29, 1927
CHAPEL HILL, N. C.
the university of north CAROLINA PRESS
VOL. XIII, No. 33
Editorial Boai-dt ET C. Branson. S. H. Hobba, Jr.. L. R. Wilson, E; W, Knisrht. t). D. Carrol!, J. B. Bullitt, H. W. Odum.-
* Entered as aecond-clasa matter November 14. 1914. at the Postoffice at Chapel Hill. N. C.. under the act of Augrust 24. 1912,
CHEAPEST BUT ONE
North Carolina in 1926 had the
cheapest state government in the
United States with the exception of
Alabama, which barely saved us from
last position, or first, as you may view
it. This strikes us as one of the im
portant discoveries of the year. We are
almost back in our old position which
we held for so many years,—the state
with the least expensive-state govern
ment.
The table which appears elsewhere
is based on data iust released by the
federal Department of Commerce and
. covers the fiscal year tending with 1926.
The states are ranked according to the
per inhabitant cost of operating and
maintaining the general departments of
state government. For the fiscal year
ending June 30, 1926, it cost $16,292,822
to maintain and operate the general
departments of our state government.
This, by the way, was some four hun
dred thousand dollars less than the cost
for the previous year. The per in
habitant cost was five dollars and
seventy-five cents which was less than
the cost of the state government in
any other state except Alabama,
which was just nine cents below us.
This is hard to believe but the data
are reported by the states themselves
and checked and tabulated by a federal
agency whose business it is to be ac
curate. Similar data have been re
leased annually for a good many years,
and reported in this publication. The
highest position North Carolina has
held was in 1926 when we ranked forty-
second in the per inhabitant cost of
state government.
What It Covers
The table covers all current state
government cost payments, or what it
cost to operate the general departments
of the state government during the fis
cal year. It does not cover outlay pay
ment for ' permanent improvements.
Such payments are made from the pro
ceeds of bond sales which are retired over
a period of years and cannot be con
sidered as a current cost payment. Nor
is ^ interest on debt included for any
state, because, due to the variety of
purposes for which bonds are issued,
and methods of financing them, states
are not comparable..,. For instance, in
North Carolina about three-fourths of
our state debt has been incurred to
build highways and to lend to counties
for building ‘schoolhouses. The high
way debt is cared for by special gaso
line and license taxes, while the coun
ties reimburse the state for the school
building debt. Such debt does not
affect the general state taxpayer. The
cost of maintaining our state highways
is included, as it is a current cost.
The following items are covered in
the table, and states are comparable
as all states carry on these general ac
tivities; (1) General government, exec
utive, legislative, judicial; (2) protection
to person and property; (3) development
and conservation of natural resources;
(4) conservation of health and sanita
tion; (6) highways (supervising depart
ment and maintenance); (6) charities,
hospitals, and corrections; (7)education;
(8) recreation; and (9) miscellaneous,
mainly pensions to Confederate sol
diers.
In our state the highway department
operates separately from the general
fund, but since highway maintenance
is an activity of every, state' govern
ment, the amount spent on maintain
ing our state highways, and the super
vising department, is included in the
table which appears elsewhere. This
makes the states strictly comparable.
Nevada Continues to Lead
The general departments of the state
government of Nevada cost $26.05 per
inhabitant for the year 1926. For
several years Nevada has led in the per
inhabitant cost ^ state government.-
Alabama in 1926 had the least expensive
state government, less expensive than
North Carolina by jijst nine cents per
inhabitant.
Generally North Carolina ^anks well
among Southern states, often leading
them, but in state government cost for
last year we came perilously near rank
ing last of all the states, Southern in
cluded. Several Southern states rank
well ahead of North Carolina in cur
rent state government expenditures,
notably .Texas, Louisiana, Virginia,
Florida, and South Carolina. 'Three
other Southern states lead us by a
margin of a dollar per inhabitant.
State government expenditures have
increased rapidly in North Carolina
within recent years. But so have they
in other states. A decade ago we had
the least expensive state government.
It is now the least expensive save one,
on a per inhabitant cost basis. The
facts may not be in accord with the
popular belief, but the facts are
authoritative. That our state govern
ment is efficiently and effectively ad
ministered is generally conceded. That
it cost so little compared with other
states undoubtedly will be a surprise to
most people. —S. H. H., Jr.
FINANCIAL EXHIBIT
Th$ federal Department of Commerce
announces a summary of the financial
statistics of the State of North Caro
lina for the fiscal year ending June 30,
1926.«
Expenditures
The payments for maintenance and
operation of the general departments
of North Carolina for the fiscal year
ending June 30, 1926, amounted to $16,-
292,822, or $5.76 per capita. This in
cludes $1,923,579, apportionments for
education to the minor civil divisions of
the state. In 1926 the comparative
per capita for maintenance and opera
tion of general departments was $6.09,
and in 1917, $1.96. The expenses of
public service enterprises amounted to
$16,635; interest on debt, $6,214,374;
and outlays for permanent improve
ments, $24,280,205. The total pay
ments, therefore, for expenses of gen
eral departments and public service
enterprises, interest, and outlays were
$46,804,036. The totals include all pay
ments for the year, whether made
from current revenues or from the
proceeds of bond issues.
Of the govermental costs reported
above, $23,990,981 was for highways,
$2,940,210 being for maintenance and
$21,060,671 for construction.
Revenues
The total revenue receipts of North
Carolina for 1926 were $36,474,774 or
$12.87 per capita. This was $14,950,-
943 more than the total payments of
the year, exclusive of the payments for
permanent improvements, but $9,329,
262 less than the total payments in
cluding those for permanent improve
ments. These payments in excess of
revenue receipts were met from the
proceeds of debt obligations. Property
and special taxes represented 21.8 per
cent of the total revenue for 1926, 18.6
percent for 1925, and 50.2 percent for
1917. The increase in the amount of
property and special taxes collected
was 77.2 percent from 1917 to 1925, and
51.3 percent from 1925 to 1926, the in
crease from 1926 to 1926 being largely
due to greater receipts from the income
tax. The per capita property and
special taxes were $2.81 in 1926,
$1.92 in 1926, and $1.20 in 1917. The
receipts from general property taxes in
1926 and 1926 were negligible, being
pnly collections on levy of previous
years.
Earnings of general departments, or
compensation for services rendered by
state officials, represented 11.1 percent
of the total revenue for 1926, 11.2 per
cent for 1925, and 20.4 percent for 1917.
Business and nonbusiness licenses
constituted 43.1 percent of the total
revenue for 1926, 49.3 percent for 1925,
and 19.4 percent for 1917.
Receipts from business licenses con
sist chiefly of taxes exacted from
insurance and other incorporated com
panies and. of sales tax on gasoline,
while those from nonbusiness licenses
comprise chiefly taxes on motor vehicles.
Indebtedness
The net indebtedness (funded or fixed
debt less sinking fund assets) of North
Carolina on June 30, 1926. was $119,-
162,666 or $42.03 per capita. In 1926
the per capita debt was $33.44, and in
1917, $3.85.
KNOW NORTH CAROLINA
4. Our Tobacco Industry
There are at least two economic
pursuits in which North Carolina
stands first among the states: (l)the
crop production of tobacco, and (2)
the manufacture of tobacco products.
We lead the states in the number
of acres devoted to tobacco produc
tion, and in the annual value of the
tobacco crop. Kentucky generally
ranks first in cr15p volume but we
rank first in crop value as our bright
leaf tobacco brings more in the mar
ket. The value of the North Caro
lina tobacco crop last year was
$103,802,000 while the value of the
crop of the entire United States was
$245,175,000.
There is no close rival to North
Carolina as a tobacco manufacturing
state. Complete and satisfactory sta
tistics about this industry have never
been assembled, nor are data avail
able from which satisfactory tabula
tions for all items can be made.
The capital stock of tobacco fac
tories located in North Carolina is
not available, nor is the value of
the plants available.
Tbe employees in 1926 numbered
20,466, of whom 10,846 were men,
9,519 were women, and 100 were
children. Finished tobacco is mainly
a product of complicated machinery.
The report of the Commissioner
of Internal Revenue shows that
North Carolina pays 46.6 percent of
all tobacco taxes paid in the United
States. The tobacco tax for the fiscal
year ending June 30,1926, amounted
to $172,603,187, and this tax will
amount to- more than one hundred
and eighty million dollars for the
year ending June 30, 1927.
North Carolina manufactures sixty
percent of all cigarettes manufac
tured in the United States. We
will manufacture this year around
forty-eight billion cigarettes, or
mor^e than four hundred cigarettes
per inhabitant in the United States.
North Carolina produces one-third
of all the manufactured tobacco
such as pipe smoking tobacco and
cigarette “makings” produced in the
United States. We are not an im
portant manufacturer of cigars of
any class, and no snuff is produced
in the state.
The cigarette tax is three dollars
per thousand cigarettes, and the tax
on manufactured tobacco is eighteen
cents per pound. If we assume that
the tax paid to the federal Govern
ment is equivalent to forty percent of
tbe value of the manufactured prod
ucts, then the value of output of
our tobacco factories last year was
approximately $430,000,000, This
exceeds the value of output of our
textile' industries. It exceeds the
value of all farm products produced
by our two hundred and eighty-
five thousand farms.
Expansion in tobacco consumption
has been greatest along cigarette
and pipe-smoking lines. These are
North Carolina's specialties. We
have no close competition as a cig
arette-producing state, and we pro
duce more than twice as much pipe
tobacco and cigarette makings as
our nearest competitor. North Caro
lina is the Nation’s chief producer
of bright leaf tobacco which goes
into cigarettes and manufactured
tobacco. It seems, therefore, that
our farms and factories are beauti
fully coordinated to meet the popu
lar trend.
has declined almost to the vanishing
point, and in 1924 the death rate from
diphtheria was only 6.6 per 100,000, and
from scarlet fever 0.9 per 100,000. The
tuberculosis death rate is the lowest of
any country in Europe.
Many Physicians
All Danish physicians receive the
same university education at the same
national medical school, the University
of Copenhagen, at which instruction is
practically gratuitous, tbe fees for the
entire course amounting to''^ less than
thirty dollars. There are about ,900
medical students, and each year from
seventy to one hundred graduates.
There is about one physician for each
1,600 inhabitants in the country. Quack
ery has been forbidden since 1672.
The uniformly high standard of medi
cal education in Denmark for all phy
sicians has insured a good quality of
medical service, and as a result the
physicians are held in high esteem by
the people.
Hospital Service
There is no country in which hospi
tal service has been more fully devel
oped than in. Denmark. Practically all
the general hospitals are public insti
tutions constructed by the muicipali-
ties or counties, or jointly by the two.
Every county has one or more large
control hospitals and several smaller
ones. In all, there are 176 general
hospitals with more than 14,000 beds
or 4.5 beds per 1,000 inhabitants. This
compares with 2.6 general hospital
beds per 1,000 people in the United
States. There are six state hospitals
for mental diseases and two mental
hospitals in Copenhagen, having a total
bej capacity of nearly 6,000 or 1.8 beds
per 1,000 population. In addition, there
are four institutions for the feeble
minded, with 3,600 beds, and two small
homes for epileptics. Seventy percent
of the operating cost of the mental di
sease hospitals is paid from public
funds and thirty percent is paid by the
patients either directly or through
their sick benefit clubs.
SicK Benefit Clubs
Denmark has a system of voluntary
insurance against sickness which in
cludes sixty percent of the population
between the ages of fifteen and sixty.
Approximately one and one-third mil
lion people have membership in tbe sick
benefit clubs. A club is usually limited
to some special locality, though some
times it is connected with a special
trade. The sick benefit clubs have a
public health interest, not only because
they have assured to a large part of
the population adequate and early medi
cal treatment which is often the best
means of prevention, but because they
they have done much to free the indi
vidual from the economic consequences
of disease. ,The annual cost per mem
ber is about $4.60.
Child Welfare
Denmark makes very elaborate pro
visions for child welfare. State ex
penditures for this purpose reach several
million dollars a year. Institutions f^^r
the crippled, the blind, the deaf, the
imbecile, the epileptic, and tubercu
lous children have a capacity of 3,046.
Adequate provisions are made for
orphans and for the care of children
whose mothers are obliged to work,
The birth of every illegitimate child
must be reported by the attending
physician or midwife to the child-wel
fare council, which organization ex
ercises intimate supervision over these
children. The mortality among illegit
imate children was formerly very
high, but now approximates that of
children born in wedlock. About 8,000
illegitimate children are born each
year, representing about 10 percent of
the total births. A number of insti
tutions are operated for the care of un
married mothers and their children or
for the children alone.
Contagious^Diseases
For nearly 160 years regulations
have been in effect in Denmark pro
viding the public free treatment for all
cases of venereal disease without re
gard to the ability of the patient to
pay, and requiring all venereally in
fected persons to submit tbe'mselvea
to medical treatment. Free treatment
and tbe obligation to submit to treat
ment have been tbe two guiding prin
ciples in the control of these diseases.
Smallpox vaccination has been com
pulsory in Denmark for 116 years, and
there is, on the average, scarcely one
case of smallpox per year occurring in
the whole country. Moat of the vacci
nations are done at public expense. In
Copenhagen a staff for public vaccina
tions is employed. In the small towns,
vaccination clinics are held twice an
nually, and in the rural districts once
annually.
All these things impress the visitor
to Denmark. It is true that taxes are
high; a physician with a moderate in
come pays twenty-five percent of his
income, and a charwoman twelve per
cent of her income in taxes, for ex
ample, and it is practically impossible
now to accumulate a fortune in Den
mark. On the other hand, a fortune in
Denmark is not necessary in order for
an individual to enjoy the “blessings of
civilization.” For the taxes which are
paid, very considerable and tangible
services are rendered by the govern
ment (state and local). The National
Government expends each year one-
haif of its income for what is termed
public health (more properly public
welfare), and expenditures by local
governments exceed those of the state,
with the result that, each year, public '
expenditures for this purpose average
thirteen dollars for every inhabitant.
—Adapted from y. S. Public Health
Report.
PUBLICHEALTH IN DENMARK
Denmark presents a very interesting
field for the student of any problem of
social welfare and particularly for the
student of public health. It is a small
country, with an area of 16,600 square
miles and a population of about 3,400,-
000. It is a farming country; thirty-one
percent of the people earn their livipg
by agriculture and fifty-seven percent
of the population live in rural districts.
The country has a homogeneous popu
lation, ninety-seven percent being na
tive born. The people are above the
average in physical fitness. Standards
of living and of education are high, and
there is a comparatively even disttibu-
tk-n of wealth, with a relative ab
sence of poverty.
Mortality rates are very favorable,
the general death rate being under
twMveper thousand; and the birthrate,
although declining, is nearly double the
death rate. The average expectation
of life is fifty-eight years. The infant
mortality rate has been consistently
under eighty-five per thousand live
births for several years. Typhoid fever
COST OF STATE GOVERNMENTS
Per Inhabitant for the Year 1926 ♦
In the following table, based on Financial Statistics of States, Federal
Department of Commerce, the states are ranked according to the per inhabitant
cost of maintaining and operating the general departments of state government
for the fiscal year ending 1926. The table covers all current expenditures, that
is, what it cosUto maintain and operate the respective state governments dur
ing the fiscal year. Outlay payments for permanent inprovements are not in
cluded, nor is interest on debt included for any state. T^e cost of maintaining
state highways is included.
It cost $16,292,822 to run the state government of North Carolina for the
fiscal year ending June 30, 1926. The per inhabitant cost was $5.76, just nine
cents per inhabitant above Alabama which has the cheapest state government.
Onr rank was 42nd in 1926, and 47th in 1926. \
S. H. Hobbs, Jr.
Department of Rural Social-Economics, University of North Carolina
Per inhab.
Per inhab.
Rank' State
cost of
Rank State
cost of
state gov’t
>
state gov’t
1
Nevada
$26.05
25
Massachusetts
$8.37
2
Delaware
18.29
26
Iowa
9.03
3
Wyoming
17.94
27
Louisiana
8.96
4
Utah
14.60
28
Virginia
8;58
6
California
14.48
29
Idaho
8.47
6
South Dakota
13.62
30
Indiana
7.94
7
Washington
13.40
31
Florida
7.87
8
Vermont
13.17
32
Pennsylvania
7.86
9
Maine
13.08
33
Montana
7.71
10
Arizona
18.06
34
West Virginia
7.25
11
North Dakota
12.68
35
Nebraska
7.04
12
New Hampshire....
12.41
36
South Carolina
6.98
13
Minnesota
12.34
37
Missouri
6.90
14
Oregon
12.23
38
Kansas
6.83
15
New York
12.01
39
Oklahoma
6.73
16
New Jersey
11.89
40
Mississippi
6.71
17
Connecticut
11.82
41
Kentucky
6.71
18
Maryland
10.78
42
Arkansas
6.32
19
New Mexico
10.47
43
Georgia
6.20
20
Michigan
10.42
44
Illinois
6.04
21
Texas
9.98
45
Ohio
6.88
22
Wisconsin
9.86
46
Tennessee
6.82
23
Colorado
9.66
47
North Carolina
5.76
24
Rhode Island
9.49
43
Alabama
6.66